My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We celebrate the Feast of the Queenship of Mary this weekend.  A Blessed Feast Day to all of you.  We will be celebrating our Feast Day with Mass at 11am followed by a Parish Luncheon.

Mary Our Queen Catholic School is an important part of the life and strength of our parish community, and it is a great joy and blessing to welcome our students and families back for another school year. As our school opened its doors on August 19 for its 61st year, we welcomed 653 students from 395 families representing 33 ZIP codes across the Omaha metro area, along with 12 new staff members. I am especially grateful for the opportunity our school gives us to welcome new families from both Mary Our Queen and St. John Vianney and to walk together as one parish family and school community.

We give thanks to God for the many blessings He has bestowed upon us and for our parents, parishioners, teachers and staff who help our students grow in both faith and knowledge. Please join me in praying for our students, faculty and staff as they begin this new year—that they may grow closer to Christ, serve one another with love, and recognize God’s presence in all they do.

We did some last-minute work at the playground of our Early Childhood Education and Youth Center this week.  When we built the playground, we built it with the thought we could modify it.  However, we have since acquired the house next to our preschool and converted it to a play space.  Given that the ground was sinking, we removed the crushed rock in that section and poured concrete in its place and reinstalled the rubber mats over the concrete to keep our children safe.

Our Christmas in July is now Christmas in August at St John Vianney.  In the narthex there is a Christmas Wish List tree with ornaments requesting gift cards that will support our Outreach program for the less fortunate.  On each ornament is a prayer that we invite you to pray for the individual or family that you will be supporting.  We thank you for your generosity.

I am looking for a few gardening angels to help us maintain various mulch beds on our campuses of both St John Vianney and Mary Our Queen.  We do our best to make it easy to maintain our grounds with a spring and fall cleanup and growing plants that are perennials.  However, there some of our mulch beds are prone to weeds that need some pruning during the course of the year.  There will be a signup genius in the next week or so that will indicate the areas that need some tlc.  I hope that you will be willing to make time to help us keep our Parish grounds beautiful.

I am hoping to plant some new trees at both St John Vianney and Mary Our Queen campuses.  If you are able to help us defray some of that cost, I would appreciate it.

Blessed Feast Day to all of you,

Fr Marc